Vladislav Janiš

* 1954

  • “Later in '96 a bunch of us met, I think we had two or three people from the Kysucké Nové Mesto VPN, but they were guys who diverged from the lot that communicated more with Mečiar, and we founded the Democratic Party in Kysucké Nové Mesto with them. This was, however, preceded by the fact that one of those VPN members, his name was Milan Kružliak, and one of my relatives, Štefan Belák, were at some DP meeting in Banská Štiavnica. They liked something about it, of course, they came back with such enthusiasm, and since we knew each other, they told me what was going on. And I was, knowing my historical experience and development in our family, I was quite familiar with such things. So they would visit me a lot and we would discuss everything. And this actually generated a group that contacted the DP headquarters and we set up one of the DP clubs in Kysucké Nové Mesto.”

  • “I was at a vocational technical school with Piško and Skrúcaný in Kysucké Nové Mesto. That happened in '96, too. Well, everything was fine, it was a debate, there were many students, and someone asked them who they were going to vote for. So they said, they explained who they definitely wouldn’t vote for, and so on. Of course, there were professors and all kinds of people, 90% of the people were positively for Mečiar. It wasn’t even evening when they called me in response to the lecture, where these people clarified who they would vote for, they called me saying they wanted to remove the director. It was unpleasant to me because the headmaster had just been after a heart attack. In the end it was somehow hushed up and the headmaster stayed in the position, but we were forbidden to enter all high schools and universities for some time.”

  • “Then there was another problem, the fact that I wasn’t a party follower, I wasn’t in the Communist Party. So a political official came, otherwise a very decent, sophisticated man, and he said to me: 'You know what, Vlado, it would be good if you joined the party.' It was kind of against my conscience due to my background at home, but he said to me: 'You’ll be there and you’ll be fine.' So I somehow consented to this devil's sign and went to Prague, where I was checked up on by the political department whether I was a capable Communist."

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Past failure - joining the Communist Party - is trying to remedy by civic activism

Vladislav Janiš
Vladislav Janiš
zdroj: Archív pamätníka

Vladislav Janiš was born in the village of Nesluša in Kysuce in 1954. He graduated from a hotel academy and joined military service in Malacky and Bratislava. During the military service he became chairman of the local Socialist Union of Youth (SZM) and joined the Communist Party (KSS) out of conviction. Later, however, he experienced the party membership rather negatively and he saw the fall of the communist regime as a possibility of liberation. He became civically active. Through the Permanent Conference of the Civic Institute (SKOI) he organized discussions and lectures at schools and for the public in Kysuce. Due to open disagreement with the People’s Party – Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS) they were forbidden to organize events at schools for some time. In 1996 he founded the political club of the Democratic Party in Kysuce. He was one of the founders of the Civic Conservative Party (OKS) after changes in the leadership of the DP. It works in certain variations to this day.